Increased use of mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, with an expanding number of wireless services offered on the devices, such as streaming video, have placed increased data loads and throughput requirements on wireless networks. To handle the increasing amount of wireless services to an increasing numbers of users, various multiple antenna techniques can be employed in wireless network environments to meet the increasing data and throughput demands.
In homogeneous networks, transmission stations, also called macro nodes, can provide basic wireless coverage to mobile devices. The geographical coverage area for each node can be referred to as a cell. The geographical coverage area of a macro node can be referred to as a macro cell. Heterogeneous networks (HetNets) were introduced to handle increased traffic loads on the macro nodes due to increased usage and functionality of mobile devices. HetNets can include a layer of planned high power macro nodes (or macro eNode Bs) overlaid with layers of lower power nodes (micro-nodes, pico-nodes, femto-nodes, home-nodes, relay stations, etc.) that can be deployed in a less organized or uncoordinated manner within the coverage area of the macro nodes. The macro nodes can be used for basic coverage, and the low power nodes can be used to fill coverage holes, to improve capacity in hot-zones or at the boundaries between the macro nodes' coverage areas, and to improve indoor coverage where building structures impede signal transmission.
As the number of communications networks increases, as well as the geographical coverage of the wireless cellular networks using HetNets, energy efficiency is becoming an increasingly important aspect of communications networks, such as HetNets. However, nodes in communications systems were not built specifically for energy efficiency. Additionally, there are increasingly more and more applications on user equipment (UEs) using always-on connections to a serving application in the network. In one example, UE applications such as a social networking application, a voice over internet protocol (VOIP) application, or a location service application may generate background traffic even when the UE or the application is not in active use. The background traffic from these applications may include packets of relatively small size, which may be sent intermittently.
Reducing a number of active nodes used in a communications networks, such as a HetNet, can be used to reduce an overall power consumption in a communications network. However, maintaining UE connectivity, including connectivity for UE background traffic and always on applications, makes reducing the number of nodes in a communications network difficult. Accordingly, there is a need to improve an efficiency of saving energy in communication networks.
Reference will now be made to the exemplary embodiments illustrated, and specific language will be used herein to describe the same. It will nevertheless be understood that no limitation of the scope of the invention is thereby intended.